“In our collective eagerness to talk about our growing list of cloud offerings, emerging cloud strategies, and contributions to the cloud community, we all started blogging from different places. The data center folks were talking about Cisco’s cloud-optimized hardware on one blog, the open source enthusiasts were talking about OpenStack and the Metacloud acquisition on another (this one), and still other groups were discussing cloud security and cloud as it relates to SDN on other blogs.”

I like to think of virtualization as an expanded networking toolkit, providing us with additional options to get the job done. It’s almost like when cordless tools entered the consumer tool market. You could take the cordless tools anywhere and use them in new and exciting applications. But there was a key drawback that I’m sure you remember. The early cordless tools had a limited effective power range. Over the next decade or two, battery technology improved and there were fewer power related drawbacks to going cordless.

A few similarities exist in the network functions virtualization (NFV) space. I Read More »

My one word response would be “very”. But the longer version would start with “it depends”.

Here’s the longer version:

It depends on your perspective. I remember when the Cisco 12000 Series GSR was introduced in the late 90’s. It started an arms race that would last for over a decade. The popular comparison at the time was all about who had the biggest router, or “speeds and feeds” as we used to describe them. 2015 offers us a very different networking discussion. People that design and operate networks are more interested in programmability and virtualization (a.k.a. SDN (Software Defined Networks) and NFV(Network Functions Virtualization). From Frederic Trate’s blog on Application Engineered Routing, you can see why this level of control is such an interesting and important place to start the discussion.

I would argue that in terms of talking points, “speeds and feeds” have taken a back seat in network design. After all, a bunch of static ports and traffic-engineered tunnels don’t lead us to the flexibility and scale that we all seek – or can they? Here are some instances where physical routers are still Read More »

Exciting times! Cisco Live Melbourne 2015 started on the 17th with four packed days of technology updates and new solution launches. This year we are expecting a phenomenal crowd of more than 5700 attendees. Cloud, virtualization and SDN(Software Defined Networks)/NFV(Network Function Virtualization) are a big agenda for all our customers and you will find the latest here at Cisco Live with up to 16 concurrent sessions to choose throughout the day. Try your hands on one of many Self-paced Labs or show off your prowess at DevNet.

And then, there is the World of Solutions @ Cisco Live. This year, the World of Solutions will have a wonderful village-like atmosphere complete with bus stands, trees and clouds amongst the Meet the Experts and CCIE corners. At Cisco, we believe that the future is about Connecting the Read More »

One may say this is a topic the telecom industry has been working on for many years and that’s somewhat true. Remember the time when routing protocols and QoS (Quality of Service) mechanisms were the only tools at Service Provider’s disposal to arbitrate between sensitive and non-sensitive traffic? That worked pretty well as long as Service Providers only had to support a few applications – mainly voice and data.

Over time however, as carriers began to converge networks assets into a single, unified IP infrastructure they were faced with the challenge of increasing control over their network infrastructure. Programmability was not yet an industry buzzword but Read More »

Some of the individuals posting to this site, including the moderators, work for Cisco Systems. Opinions expressed here and in any corresponding comments are the personal opinions of the original authors, not of Cisco. The content is provided for informational purposes only and is not meant to be an endorsement or representation by Cisco or any other party. This site is available to the public. No information you consider confidential should be posted to this site. By posting you agree to be solely responsible for the content of all information you contribute, link to, or otherwise upload to the Website and release Cisco from any liability related to your use of the Website. You also grant to Cisco a worldwide, perpetual, irrevocable, royalty-free and fully-paid, transferable (including rights to sublicense) right to exercise all copyright, publicity, and moral rights with respect to any original content you provide. The comments are moderated. Comments will appear as soon as they are approved by the moderator.